Need You Tonight
by Nynaeve1723
Summary: Pretty much PWP. What happens in fic stays in fic because heaven knows it won't end up at 8 pm Fridays Family hour. Would the summary work better if I just said sex? Grin.
1. Chapter 1

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Willing to stage a coup.**

**A/N: No flipping idea where this came from. Don't overthink it timeline-wise, just go with it – I did. **

**DEDICATION: If you don't know who you are by now… **

**LAST NOTE: If you are not 18, please go read something else. If you are over 18, let me know if you enjoyed this – after the cold shower.**

**Need You Tonight**

He smelled of stale sweat, fading aftershave and coffee spilled on his shirt. His breath reeked with Scotch. His chin was dark from two days' growth of hair. His face was pale, tight, the flesh drawn in upon the bones.

But it was his eyes that cut me to the center of my soul. Those deep, beguiling, blue eyes could always do that to me.

I almost didn't open the door to his knock. I knew it would be him. After the day's fallout there was no way he'd keep his distance. I didn't know what he'd say. I think I wanted him to rant, to blame me, to vent his anger, frustration and disappointment for once and for all.

Instead he looked at me with those eyes. Even though the peephole I could see them. And I was lost.

Haggard, exhausted, he nearly tumbled through the door. Instinct made me reach out for him, to steady him, as if the last year hadn't happened, as if we could just go back to how it once was. I should have known better. I probably did know better.

But this was Woody. This was the man I've loved longer than I care to admit, the one I've hurt in more ways than I care to count, the one who's managed to hurt me a few times, too.

The moment my hands touched him, I felt the bunch of his biceps under my fingers as he reached for me in the same motion. Then my hands were on his chest and his arms were around me, pulling me to him while his body pushed into the apartment. I felt more than saw or heard him kick the door shut and then his mouth was on mine. A second of hesitation flared within me, but never truly drew breath. His breath washed over my ear, his words sent hot shivers down my spine, straight to the center of my body. "Want you, Jordan. Want to fuck you."

It was crude and base, but after everything that had happened, it was the only thing that could be between us. It was also exactly what I wanted, needed even, from him. Something uncomplicated, primal but satisfying, a visceral reminder of what it meant to be alive.

Before I could respond his lips took possession of mine again, his tongue skating along them, insisting on being granted entrance. Mewling slightly, I opened my mouth for him, felt the invasive sweep of his tongue as he tasted me. His own taste of Scotch and some ineffective mouthwash served only to make me groan and nearly buckle my knees.

Frustrated at our progress toward my bed, his arms tightened around me and he lifted me off the floor, bearing me blindly toward the mattress even as his mouth continued to plunder mine. I groaned softly when he broke away, panting heavily and setting me down, my knees against the bed.

Still mute, he reached for the hem of my t-shirt and tugged the garment off me before my spinning head could catch up. His own tie and button-down followed quickly. I fumbled for the button on my jeans only to find his fingers faster, almost rough, in a delicious way. There was no finesse in him as he stripped me, nor did he slow down when he divested himself of his own clothing.

I reached for him, but he blocked me again, catching my hands in one of his, steadying me while his free hand slipped between my thighs. I gasped at the feel of his fingers against me, seeking a specific target. He dragged his index finger along the sensitive bundle of nerves he'd been seeking and this time I did buckle into him, gasping his name, my eyes closing. I gave a strangled cry when that same finger pushed into me, penetrating deeply, stroking in and out smoothly, teasingly. I was shocked to hear myself whimper. "Woody."

"God, you're wet," he murmured into my hair, his voice as raspy as his face against my cheek. I could feel him grin as his words provoked a shudder in my body. Then we were falling backwards, hitting the bed with small exhalations of sound. Without preamble he was over me, guiding himself into me, making me cry out with the feel of him. He stilled for a moment. I opened my eyes to find him staring at me, his eyes dark, unreadable for once. He dipped his mouth to my ear. "Next time I'll make love to you, Jo. That's not what _this_ is about though."

Caught in his gaze, I shook my head. "Fuck me, Woody," I whispered.

Grunting, his quadriceps bunching, he pulled out and then pushed back in, seating him to the hilt in my willing body. I arched into him, locking my heels around his back. He buried one hand in my hair, tangling his fingers in the dark strands, trapping my head where he wanted it. His mouth descended on mine again, his lips aggressive, hard even as they possessed mine. Moving rhythmically and strongly inside me, his body quickly pulled mine toward the brink.

I could hear myself breathing heavily, making small sounds, the nonsense syllables begging implicitly for release. As if he understood with perfect clarity – which he may well have – he reached between us, stroking the apex of my sex again, flicking, pinching lightly, pressing until I was falling apart in his arms, calling his name over and over. His heat and length within me, hitting exactly the right place time and time again, and the movement of his finger prolonged the pleasure until I felt wrung out with it. It wasn't until I went limp beneath him that he seemed content to let my body come down from its high and to allow himself his own pleasure. I couldn't keep from murmuring a soft "Oh!" when I felt him pulse inside me. Nor could I stop myself from clinging to him, one hand tugging at his short, dark hair, the other digging its nails into his back.

He collapsed on me, his elbows bent enough to keep all of his weight off me. I relished the feel of him though, heavy, solid, hot pushing my body into the mattress. His breath, as rapid as mine, flowed over my face until he dipped his head to the curve where my neck and shoulder joined. If I thought he had exhausted whatever deep urge had brought him here, had driven him to possess me, I was wrong. His mouth fastened on the skin he found and he sucked, marking me, branding me as his. Any other time I would have pushed him away, castigated him for such behavior, but the last months had been too long, too draining, too empty. I wanted to belong. More, I wanted to belong to him.

I cried out softly as he increased the suction on the tender flesh, bruising me. With an audible sound, he pulled away, bringing his head up to peer down into my face. We'd still spoken fewer than twenty words to each other.

He reached up and held my face in his hands. The half-expected, almost-unwanted tenderness still did not come. Instead, he took my mouth again in another searing, possessive kiss. I could feel my lips already swelling from the punishment he'd inflicted on them and all I could think was that I wanted more. Even in his rough need, he did not, could not, hurt me. Rather, his urgency matched mine, fed mine.

Even as he broke away and began to kiss a line down the column of my neck, stopping to nip and lick and soothe the tiny marks he left, my hands began to explore the toned planes of his upper body. The dark, coarse hair on his chest tickled my finger tips while I could feel every defined curve of muscle in his abs. My wandering hands ventured lower, but he trumped me, his mouth latching on to one already taut, aching nipple.

I gripped his shoulders and arched my neck, my head pressed deeply into the bed, sensations zinging through my body in a nearly overwhelming barrage. The wash of his tongue over the sensitive peak, the gentle-then-increasing pressure of his lips as he suckled short circuited any higher brain function of which I'd still been capable. I clung to him helplessly, mewing, moaning, begging. He brought a hand to my other breast and began to massage it firmly, his fingers rolling and tweaking the nipple. Sharp, sweet, maddening jolts ran straight to my physical core. I thought the ache would split me in two. At the same time, I didn't want him to stop until he knew every inch of my body, until I was as completely his as I could be.

I cried out with loss when he released me. He hushed me gently, kissing his way down my stomach, his tongue swirling briefly, pleasurably in my navel while his fingers sketched the details of an inferno on the insides of my thighs. He nudged lightly and I opened to him, thrusting toward his hands. He laid one arm across my stomach as his mouth continued to kiss its way down, joining his fingers in their soft teasing of my body.

The moment his tongue slid over my body's most intimate opening, I bucked despite his restraining arm. He withdrew and I could feel the brush of his exhalation over me. I whined a desperate, needy plea and was rewarded with a low chuckle that rumbled from his chest straight into my belly and sharpened the ache inside me. Gently, he drew his tongue over me again, repeating the delicate torture until I was writhing beneath him. When at last, he gave in to the inevitable, licking, sucking, swirling his tongue in me, my synapses gave up entirely. I have no idea how long it was before I knew anything but the pleasure coursing through me, before I realized I was screaming in ecstasy, before I was tugging at his hair.

Even as he moved over me again, he chuckled. I had regained enough control to reach for him, stopping him mid-laugh. I wrapped a hand around him, stroking him slowly as he trembled above with me. Our eyes met, fire sparking at me from the depths of his blue ones, smoky desire rising to him from mine, I had no doubt. The desire to torment him vanished, replaced with the still fierce need to feel him inside me.

Somewhere in my brain I knew there was so much we needed to talk about, to establish, but for once my heart did the thinking. I had nearly lost this, nearly let him lose me. This was not going to be a substitute for the honesty we needed to give to each other, but for the moment it healed the wounds and said the things we didn't yet have words for.

He whispered my name as he entered me. Blindly, I reached for his hands. We twined our fingers as he began moving. I met him stroke for delicious stroke. His fingers spasmed around mine as my body did around him. His orgasm, the feel of him surging in me, pushed me over with him.

Unexpected, uncontrolled, unbidden, the words rushed from my mouth in a soft susurration. "I love you, Woody."

I felt him smile against me and he squeezed my hands.

"I never stopped," I added.

He looked at me, freeing one hand to tuck a lock of hair behind one of my ears. Then he traced the line of my cheekbone with a soft touch. "I love you, too, Jo. I've given up on ever loving anyone else."

"Good," I told him.

"Yeah?" He was grinning at me, those blue eyes dancing.

I nodded. "I have this feeling that I could get pretty jealous." I gave him a wicked grin. "And I could commit the perfect murder."

He laughed softly. "I'm going to have to keep that in mind, aren't I?"

I shrugged beneath him. "Wouldn't hurt."

His lips descended on mine, but this time the kiss held all the tenderness we were capable of. As he rolled off me and pulled me into his embrace, he asked, shyly suddenly, if he'd hurt me, starting to apologize, when I stopped him with assurances that he hadn't.

Lying spooned together, we fell asleep. I'd woken up in his arms one other time, my brain fuzzy upon wakening, my conscience shaming me as realization dawned. This time when my eyes blinked open and my body registered the weight of his arm, the texture of his body curved to mine, the scent of him enveloping me, my thoughts were clear and my conscience silent.

The road had been a long one. From Pollack to Lu, to a murder charge against me and my own flight, to the likelihood that my return, even as it cleared me, could cost him his badge, we had struggled to this place. I'd fought it so long, battled myself and him, only to give in at last to what helped to make me whole. I didn't fool myself into the belief that there were no more obstacles for us, but I let myself hope that we could finally face them together.

His voice, sleep-rough, rumbled in my ear. "What time is it?"

"Don't know," I murmured softly. "It's still dark."

"Good," he purred.

"Why?"

He disentangled himself from me. "Because it gives me time to do what I promised."

"And that was?" I arched a brow as I looked at him.

"Make love to you. Slowly, tenderly, gently."

I almost protested that he didn't have to do that, but then again, why stop him when the grin on his face told me he was so looking forward to it? I replied by leaning up and kissing him. Though not as crushing or possessive as our previous kisses, it had the same soul-searing heat.

Yep. Somehow we'd be all right.

END


	2. Woody's POV

**DISCLAIMER: Don't own 'em. Willing to stage a coup.**

**A/N: Companion piece to "Need You Tonight." This one is from Woody's POV. And hey, two down in my vast collection of works-in-progress on the hard drive. Apparently, my brain decided to kick in today. Now, if only my work projects could get done…**

**DEDICATION: If you don't know who you are by now… **

**LAST NOTE: If you are not 18, please go read something else. If you are over 18, let me know if you enjoyed this – after the cold shower.**

**Need You Tonight: Woody's POV**

I didn't know if she'd even answer my knock at her door, but I had to try. I'd seen her – briefly – this afternoon. Garret and Lily had been with her, radiating a mute warning, a protective order meant to keep away any and all members of the BPD and the D.A.'s office. She'd only been at the precinct long enough to sign a statement and accept the apologies of the captain. I'd caught her eyes just once. She'd looked away.

I didn't know what I'd say to her. Did I want credit? Did I want her to acknowledge that I'd spent the last three and a half months of my life putting my career on the line almost daily for her? That I'd walked out on a relationship I'd thought was working? That since the big break Nigel'd found three days ago, I'd only been home once? Slept only a few fleeting hours? Or did I just need to see her, hear her, touch her – her hand, her shoulder, her cheek, anything – just to know she was really safe and really back with us? With me. I didn't know and I didn't care. I wanted to erase the last year, wave a magic wand, slay the dragon and start over from that moment in the hospital. Once upon a time….

I heard her at the door, knew from the small shift of light that she was checking the peephole. I met what I imagined was her deep brown gaze and prayed to every saint I could think of. I heard the scrape of a chain and the flip of the deadbolt and the door opened.

The adrenaline I'd been living on melted away at the sight of her. Exhaustion and the booze I'd consumed trying to get my nerve up to come see her took over. I bounced off the doorframe and stumbled into her place. And into her arms. She reached for me as if nothing had changed. I felt her fingertips on my arms and I couldn't pull her to me fast enough.

What was I going to say? What did she want me to say? Did she want to yell at me? To lump me in with the others – with Lu – who'd rationalized away some pretty hard evidence just to keep her in the frame? Suddenly, it didn't matter. I kicked the door shut behind us and, keeping her close, took her mouth with mine.

I felt the tiniest flicker of hesitation within her and then it was gone. I needed her so damn much. I whispered the thoughts tumbling in my brain. "Want you, Jordan. Want to fuck you." She shivered delightfully despite the crude vulgarity of my words and matched my fervor, slanting her lips against mine, opening them to me when I skated my tongue along them. I'd tasted her before – those chaste kisses or two and that night at the Lucy Carver Inn – but those seemed like some pale imitation, a colorless, bland mixture compared to now. I didn't think I could ever get enough of her. She tasted of wine and cinnamon sugar and something that could only be her own ineffable taste.

I didn't recall her apartment being this big. Clearly, it had doubled, maybe even trebled in size since my last visit because it was taking way too long to reach her bed. I wrapped my arms around her more tightly and hoisted her up against me, feeling her heat against my body, feeling my body react as if it had been fed electricity. Without ever breaking the kiss, I bore her toward the mattress, my body already aching for her.

As much as I wanted to make love to her, to spend as much time as it took to learn her body, to map every contour, to measure every angle of her, it wasn't what either of us needed. For perhaps the first time in our long, complicated relationship, we were on the same page. It was the sort of page my aunt would have grounded me for reading when I was a teenager, but we could tell the gentle stories later, explore the sweet chapters ahead at our leisure.

I jerked up her t-shirt, pulling it over her head, tangling her hair in enchanting curls and waves around her face. I didn't give her any time, getting out of my own constraining shirt and tie and brushing away her fingers as she tried to undo her jeans. I was almost rough with her, but she seemed to understand it came from a desperate, needy place deep inside.

I caught her hands, my mind registering for a moment that her wrists in my grasp were too thin, and then I was nudging apart her legs with one knee, reaching between her thighs. Her heat almost overwhelmed me. I slid a finger along the intimate seam of her body, feeling her moisture coat my skin. She gasped and buckled into me when my fingertip found its goal, the nub of flesh at the top of her folds. Holding her to me, I moved my finger back down, reveling in her soft, wet heat. She cried out when I pushed that finger inside her. I stroked her, reaching as deeply as I could, moving smoothly, teasing her sensitive flesh as much as either of us could stand. It didn't take much before she whimpered my name.

"God, you're wet," I whispered into her hair and felt her shudder against me. I brushed my cheek over hers, knowing the roughness would tingle and scratch at her skin, wanting to mark her in some small way. I pushed her gently and she was falling onto the bed with me following her. I gave her no time to collect her thoughts, no time to do anything but _feel_ as I guided myself into her. She gave a wordless, beautiful cry and I stilled within her. I stared down at her until she opened her eyes and stared back at me, her honey-colored irises warm and alight with passion. I lowered my mouth to her ear and murmured, "Next time I'll make love to you, Jo. That's not what _this_ is about though."

For a few long heartbeats she simply gazed up at me before, finally, she shook her head. Her words – as crude and base as mine had been – told me she was as desperate for this as I was. "Fuck me, Woody."

I held myself up on my arms and pulled back, almost out of her and then thrust back fiercely, sharply until I was buried in her tight body. She arched against me, her pelvis grinding against mine, demanding more. Her heels locked around my back as I wove my fingers into her hair, caging her head, taking her mouth in a possessive, almost brutal kiss. We moved together, stroke for hard, smooth stroke. It didn't take her long to begin to move erratically, to moan almost continuously, making these breathtaking little sounds that I had no idea could be so erotic. I slid my free hand between us, stroking the engorged bundle of nerves at the top of her opening, pinching gently, flicking, pressing until I could feel her muscles tighten around me and then she was climaxing. I watched her beautiful face as release swept through her, pulsed within her. Truthfully, I didn't know if she'd come that night at the Inn, but this night I had no doubt. I wanted her mindless in my arms, aware of only the pleasure of our joined bodies so I kept moving inside her, hitting the sweet spot over and over again, my fingers never lessening the pressure on that sensitive nub of flesh. Not until she was limp beneath me, her voice soft, my name almost a sob on her lips, did I relent. Watching her, feeling her body pull at mine a few last times, did me in. My control fractured and I joined her. She shivered when I came, letting me know she could feel it. Her nails dug into my back, letting me know she liked feeling it.

My arms might as well have been al dente pasta for all the strength I had, but somehow I kept from crushing her. She didn't complain, didn't push at me though. If anything, she wriggled beneath me, seeming to enjoy the feel of my weight on her. Her head lolled to one side, exposing the soft skin of her neck. I pressed a kiss onto the curve of sinew and then bore down, need primal and insistent again. She was mine; I wanted – needed – her to know that. More than that, I wanted anyone who saw her to know it. In the barely functioning recesses of my rational mind I expected her to push me away, to protest. Jordan Cavanaugh didn't belong to any man – never had and never would. She didn't though, just canted her head a bit more, giving me more access to the soft, silken flesh I was so intent on marring.

Satisfied and feeling as needy and untried as a shy seventeen year old virgin, I moved back to her mouth and kissed her again. Part of me ached to be tender with her and that part waited for her to demand – oh so quietly – that I stop my onslaught, but the deeper part, the piece of me that had been so fearful for so long that I'd never see her, never hold her, never touch her again won the brief battle. I knew I wasn't taking anything she wasn't eager to give – her every reaction told me that.

Even as I kissed my way down her neck, her hands began to explore my chest, to wander in the coarse hair there and to trace the shape of the muscles beneath the skin. Her fingers, so capable and deft, moved slowly lower until I retook control of the situation. She gripped my shoulders and threw her head back as I sucked one nipple into my mouth. Over and over I washed my tongue over the taut bud, nipped gently, pulled with teeth and lips until she could do nothing more than hang on for the ride. I massaged the other breast with one hand, her moans and inchoate pleas shooting hot messages straight to my groin.

My control was close to breaking, but I wanted hers utterly shattered first. My mouth released her and my libido exulted at her whimper of loss. I soothed her by nipping, licking and kissing my way down her body, throwing an arm over her belly, restraining her as my fingers found her body's opening. She trembled, her breath rushing in and out, small syllables of need and desire filling the air. Despite my arm, she bucked sharply when I drew my tongue along that opening.

I breathed against her, inhaling her scent, letting the memory of her taste flood me. I'd done this before – at the Inn – back when we were different people. Circumstances had conspired against us, from paper-thin walls (as we knew all too well) to the fact we both tacitly ignored – that she was involved with someone else. The element of unreality had constrained us; the knowledge that another world waited beyond the snow had sapped the moment of its true sweetness. I wouldn't let that happen again and I planned on proving it to her. I stroked her with my tongue, top to bottom and back again until she writhed beneath me, until she had no idea that she was screaming with pleasure. That was when I gave in and moved back up her body, feeling her reach for me even as I did so.

Her hand on my length made me shiver with pleasure. She began to stroke and was soon tugging me toward her. I doubt a half an hour had passed, but I already ached to be inside her again, to bury myself in her and feel her flesh grip at me, ripple around me. Her name fell in a whisper from my lips as I moved inside of her. We twined our hands and moved together. This time she followed me over the edge into bliss.

"I love you," she murmured as we lay together. The words had rushed from her like a runaway train, but she made no effort to take them back. I couldn't help but smile against her. "I never stopped."

A lock of her hair clung to her face. I freed one hand and slipped the errant hair behind her ear. Gently, slowly, my finger taking in every tactile sensation of her face, I then traced a line down her cheek. "I love you, too, Jo. I've given up on ever loving anyone else."

She chuckled at me and approved, telling me she was pretty sure she could be the jealous type and that she did know how to commit the perfect murder.

I smiled down at her, hardly daring to believe she was real, that this was real. We'd both done so much to screw it all up, but here we were anyway. I kissed her before rolling off of her and pulling her into my arms. I needed to apologize for the way I'd behaved – crudely, aggressively, disrespectfully. She hushed me though, assuring me she really had enjoyed every bit of it.

Spent, emotionally and physically, we drifted off to sleep. When I woke up, it was still dark. She was still in my arms. I thought briefly of the other time I'd woken up with her spooned against me like this. As now, she'd woken up first that time; unlike then. I could tell from the way she relaxed into me that she had no qualms.

"What time is it?" I breathed into her ear, knowing already the night was not over.

Her voice was soft and sleep-slurred. "Don't know. It's still dark."

I felt the blood tingling in my veins again, desire pooling in my groin. We teased back and forth for a moment, the words easy, the emotions finally just right. I knew we'd have our share of problems, but I also knew that for the first time we really stood a chance. We'd come far too close to losing this fragile thing between us not to fight for it again.

I reminded her of my earlier promise and leaned down to kiss her. This kiss was soft, but just as hot and arousing, as necessary as breath to both of us. She sighed softly as we pulled apart, our foreheads resting against each other. She opened her eyes and smiled at me. I was utterly lost.

And found.

END


End file.
